


Cannibalise Legalis

by ms45



Series: The Life and Loves of a Science Witch [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Drugs, F/M, Gen, Modern AU, Police, i love a man in uniform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms45/pseuds/ms45
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirkwall's stoners gather on the Viscount's forecourt to protest the suppression of mind-expanding substances. Sergeant Carver Hawke of the riot police notices one of them in particular.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flutiebear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flutiebear/gifts).



> Gift fic for flutiebear, who, aside from being the Queen of Carrill, mentioned that she was "a sucker for AUs that take the characters out of their original setting and plunk them in different time periods or places. The wackier the AU setting, the better. Historicals, futuristic, modern-day, steampunk, fandom crossover, coffee shop, I don't care, I just love me some AU." Therefore, please enjoy this meditation on Merrill as a kind of Timothy Leary to the Dalish.

It was a beautiful day for a protest. Sun pounded down on the forecourt of the Viscount's Keep. Even the statues, intimidating bronze behemoths depicting hawks (because Sergeant Hawke just _loooooved_ a bit of irony) glistened in an almost cheerful manner.

In comparison with the heavily armed and armoured riot police and the stolid, pedestrian local police, the protesters looked positively vibrant. Elvhen and human youths wore bright, delicate clothes which left little to the imagination. Pipes, hookahs, bongs and even needles were flaunted wildly, as if to say "you can't arrest _all_ of us!". Hand-lettered signs ranged from the mundane ("Free the Weed!") to the mysterious ("Cannibalise Legalis").

And standing aside from the others, in her own little world, was the most... _thingy_ woman Carver Hawke had ever seen. _Thingy_. She was elvhen, obviously there for the protest - unless wearing a t-shirt saying "Help End ALL Drug Prohibition" in bold black letters was something she did every day, and Carver wouldn't have put it past her - but there was something that set her apart from the other protestors, some inner quality, some... sense that Carver wanted to sweep her up, lay her down on the Viscount's many steps and fuck her until her teeth rattled. But besides that! She looked focused, determined to do her own thing in her own way, and oh Maker she was walking right towards him.

Forgetting to breathe, Carver shoved one of the community policing pamphlets clumsily at her. Strictly speaking, he wasn't supposed to be handing out the "Know the Laws of Protest" pamphlets - the riot police were here to put the frighteners on, to remind the stoners who was in charge - but Captain Vallen had slapped a handful of them into his chest and said "Here. Make yourself useful." And even if Aveline hadn't been a close family friend, his inclination to defy her was remarkably low.

The thingy woman suddenly stopped and stared at the pamphlet he was holding out. Her already huge eyes got bigger and bigger. Then, Maker save him, she beamed a thousand kilowatt smile and thrust out her own pamphlet.

They stood like that for several seconds, him gawping, her beaming, until she finally spoke.

"Respect and repatriation," she said brightly, and _oh god trilling Dalish accent that's so bloody unfair._

"I, um, I can't take your pamphlet," Carver stuttered authoritatively. Yes, THAT was going to let the stoners know who was in charge. He took a deep breath and tried to sound stentorian. "Know the laws of protest, miss. I'd hate to see a, uh, you get clobbered." He thrust ( _don't think about thrusting!_ ) his pamphlet as emphatically as he could without touching her breasts.

She looked at it like it was an asparagus croissant. "Oh no, I'll be fine, I know what I'm doing. Thank you so much. Support the Dalish?"

She held up her pamphlet, which had an awful lot of small, tightly-written text.

"I'm a police officer. I can't take your - "

"I'll swap you. Your flyer for mine."

Her eyes were huge and green and innocent, but they were also not going anywhere until he had taken her damn flyer. Carver was briefly reminded of Mother Ermenegild back in Lothering.

He slapped "Know the Laws of Protest" into her hand, discreetly thumbing her pamphlet into his palm and stuffing it underneath his own pile.

"So, er..." shit shit shit, how to keep her talking? "Look after yourself, don't try anything funny..." Fucking brilliant. "Uh, those tattoos then. They Dalish?" He held his breath, waiting for a diatribe about elves or the Dalish or trees or something.

“Oh yes! We all get them for our coming of age. Mine represent the Alerion clan, you can tell by the antlers across the forehead”, drawing her finger across her fine eyebrows for illustration. “Do you have tattoos? Or maybe a clan tartan?”

Relief – this was safe-ish territory. “Oh yes, I’ve got a mabari. For strength. Because mabari are really strong.” OK, maybe not as safe as he’d hoped.

“Can I see it?”

Oh fuck. “Um… no.” _Oh Maker yes_. _With your tongue._

She looked blank, not expecting to be blocked on such an innocent request, and then her whole face crumbled as she realised. “Oh! Oh I’m so sorry… I should have realised… oh dear…” Her hand covered her face, failing to hide the redness creeping to the very edges of her hair.

“Carver! Harassing innocent protestors now? Going to take her back to the precinct for some in-depth questioning?” A firm hand clamped on Carver’s shoulder, not a common occurrence for a six-foot-four brawler who was about two axe-handles across the chest. Carver groaned. “Garrett. Take this, you’re going to need it.” He slapped Know the Laws of Protest into his brother’s face, the better to not endure his smirking.

To Carver's unsurprised horror, the thingy woman brightened at his brother's approach. "Hawwwwke!" she sighed happily, throwing her arms around his neck as Garrett lifted her off the ground, surprisingly strong for such a scrawny asshole. Carver smiled thinly. "Friend of yours, then?"

" _Friend_ of mine, yes." Carver couldn't tell if the hard look Garrett was giving him meant "strictly platonic, you fucking loser" or "yes I'm shagging her, you fucking loser".

"Oh! You know each other? I'm Merrill." She turned back to Carver and stuck her hand out, stiffly, as if it was a strange new custom she'd just learnt. He took her hand and, _oh god, so soft, such dainty little fingers, oh shit I'm holding her hand for too long shit_ briefly shook it, hoping he wasn't crushing her with his massive paw. She didn't seem to notice how gobsmacked he was, but Garrett did.

“Do be a good brother and let us know when the skull-crushing starts,” he said, sliding his arm around Merrill’s tiny waist, knowing from long experience that steam would start hissing out of Carver’s ears any time now.

“If you obey the bloody pamphlet there won’t _be_ any skull-crushing,” retorted Carver, but his brother was already guiding Merrill over to the speaker stand, where a blonde man with a pony tail was making noises through a megaphone to get the crowds’ attention.

It wasn’t until the crowd had started chanting that Carver realised that he hadn’t told her his name. _Fuck_.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver wangles an invite to Merrill's home. Nothing dodgy about it.

With a bit of sniffing around, Carver found that Merrill was relatively new to Kirkwall, that she did some “work” with Garrett (he shuddered to think what), and that she was a bit lonely. His friend and valued contact Varric Tethras of the Kirkwall _Globe and Mail_ was a friend of hers, and suggested Carver could visit her if he dropped Varric's name. Carver was immensely relieved – he'd been worried that he'd have to invent some pretext for a search warrant. (Or, worse, get a real one.)

She lived in an area of Kirkwall that could variously be described as “bohemian” or “slums”, depending on your generosity and whether you were the sort of person who enjoyed visiting elvhen neighbourhoods, eating their food, buying their clothes and then pissing back off to Hightown where the crime was more white-collar. Carver dressed right down – there was no occasion in Allentown that required anything over jeans and a hoodie. He found her house easily enough, and tried the doorbell. When he couldn't hear anything inside, he knocked, and to be on the safe side, called “Hellooooo... Merrill? It's Carver, we met at... I'm a friend of Varric's.”

He saw a shadow at the curtains, which hovered for a few seconds, so he stepped back and waved in what he hoped was a friendly and non-intimidating way.

The door clicked and stuttered, and eventually consented to be pulled open by the slender elf's full body. “Hello! Varric mentioned you might drop around. Come in! It's nice to see a fellow Ferelden, even if – yes, very nice. Come in!” She ushered him inside.

Carver stared. He’d assumed she wasn’t going to be living anywhere swish, of course, but … this place was a _shithole_. Each room was the size of a toilet, there was no ventilation worth speaking of, the heater was an actual antique covered in decades of crusted-on soot, the carpet… He’d always scoffed at the phrase “let me take you away from all this”, but right now he wanted to pick her up and run, not walk, to the nearest apartment built less than thirty years ago. “You _live_ here?”

Merrill hung her head and blushed, and Carver immediately felt like a giant turd. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s – “

“Don’t be.” Her face _closed_ somehow, resigned to her fate. “Let me give you the tour. It’s usually good for a laugh.”

And, unbelievably, it _was_ good for a laugh. The lurid green flock wallpaper; the brown glass chandelier in the kitchenette; the shower, a triangle cut out of the corner of the toilet, which barely fit Merrill and would never fit a normal person, never mind Carver, in a million years.

“How do you actually… no, sorry, I don’t want to know,” he said, marvelling at, well, everything. “How much – no, don’t tell me that either.”

“I have a sponsor who pays for it. I just have to worry about my food and my supplies. Speaking of which! I have… “ She opened a tiny bar fridge. “…water.”

“Water’d be great, yeah… uh, what do you mean a sponsor?”

“He supports my research! I’m making very good progress.” She poured the water into a couple of old jam-glasses, and gave him the bigger one. “Come sit in the… here.”

The chairs were clearly hard-rubbish finds, and the struts of Carver’s bit into his back, but he suspected she’d given him the “good” chair. They were brown velvet – of course they were. “What are you researching?”

“Oh! You’d find it very boring, I think. Not many people stay awake for the explanation, it’s all staring out the window and ‘oh look, a puppy’. I know! I’ll put some music on.”

It was obvious that she was warding him off asking about her work, and it worried him, but he had no legitimate reason to inquire further, and besides, her shirt was lifting out of her jeans as she bent over her little phone dock, showing the tiniest bit of fluff over white knickers with green piping.

“Got any Marduk?” he said jokingly, but she just shook her head and said “No, sorry, I prefer my music more melodic. Here, we can talk over this.” She put on some pleasant girly solo guitar and turned it down to conversational level.

Sitting back down, she said “So… do you miss Ferelden?”

“Sometimes.” He sipped his water.

“I miss blackberries. You can’t get them here. Kirkwall is obsessed with cherries, they put them in everything. Also no songbirds. I wake up in the morning and all I get is garbage truck.”

“I miss the dogs barking. Or dogs at all, really. No-one has dogs here, and when they do they’re those horrid little yappy bastards.”

“Oh! Don’t say that. They can’t help being little and yappy. They’re always being kept in someone’s handbag.”

“One of those little bastards bit me in the… does this have a name? Right here,” he groused, pointing at the joint where his foot met his leg. “Hurt like shit for weeks. Bloody bitch of an owner was lucky I didn’t dropkick him into Lowtown.”

Merrill grimaced in sympathy. “That does sound very painful.”

Carver thought he might be blushing. “’snot a problem. Um. Do you miss your family?”

“I…” Her expression was hard to read, even by Carver’s fairly ordinary standards. “Kind of. We didn’t really part on the best of terms. Mum was supportive, kind of, but the others… I couldn’t stay. They really don’t understand.”

“Is that… about your research?”

Merrill shut down. “Mmm.” She fiddled with her glass, tapping her nails on it and looking about the tiny loungeroom as if hoping the bookshelves would interrupt with a funny story.

Quick, quick, change of subject. Don’t ask if she’s seeing someone – that’s too desperate. “So… how do you know Garrett?”

It worked – Merrill’s face lit up like a planned suburb at Christmas, much to Carver’s chagrin. “Oh! He was making a delivery to Mum, and she got him to help me move to Kirkwall. She’s very determined like that. I’d have been lost without him and Varric and Isabela. They’re all, I don’t know, really confident, like they belong here, even though we’re all immigrants really. But Garrett just runs around like he owns the place!”

“He certainly does,” grumbled Carver.

“How come you don’t live in that lovely house? You’re his brother, and it’s a gigantic house. I got lost in it once. I was trying to find a toilet, and I did, it was so big it was like a little apartment all by itself, but then when I came out all the hallways looked the same and I ended up in your mum’s bedroom. Garrett had to convince her I wasn’t stealing her jewelry.” She looked at her feet, still embarrassed by the memory.

Carver had his issues with his family, but surely – “I’m sure she wouldn’t have assumed you were stealing anything. She’s really very kind if you don’t cross her.”

Merrill laughed, and Carver felt a little _zhoop_ in his belly. “Yes, that sounds like my mum!”

“So Garrett, um, rescued you?” He waved his glass at their surroundings.

“Yes! It’s been… difficult. People aren’t very friendly here. I mean, people weren’t very friendly at home either, but I knew their names and what they did and how to address an elder and what to do when you get introduced to someone. It’s all really different here. And the fences! Back home I could go wherever I liked, now it’s all “trespassers will be prosecuted” and “No Bill Posters”. I don’t even know who Bill is.”

Carver laughed uproariously at that, and, after looking blank, Merrill joined him, like a bird in a construction site, until Carver was struck by the haunting thought that maybe she really didn’t know what “Bill” referred to.

“Um... yes. It's difficult, starting at the bottom. Took me frickin' ages to fit in, still not sure I actually do.” He looked at her. “Aren't you, I dunno, with a uni or something? I've never heard of a self-employed scientist, unless it's Doctor Evil.”

Merrill covered her face, giggling. “Lots of scientists work alone. As long as you have your kit and a customer, you can work faster by yourself. Besides, you can still get lonely at university.” Her demeanour suddenly slipped. “You need someone to believe in you.”

“Yes.” The atmosphere had suddenly turned broody. Where did that come from? “I read your pamphlet,” he said, hoping this would animate her. “What's an Eluvian? Why do you want one? Why do the Dalish, I mean. ”

Much better, although the shower of information was more than Carver had bargained for. “It's a kind of communications device, very ancient. My people used it before the Fall of Arlathan [ _look it up later_ , Carver thought to himself] to communicate and to travel great distances.”

“So before Jetstar, then.” Merrill glared at him – oops, back up. “So how does having one help the Dalish, then?”

“What do you know about Ferelden?”

It was an unexpected question. “Er, about eighty thousand clicks in area, capital city is Denerim, primary industries are agriculture and light manufacturing, current Prime Minister is Anora McTeir, um... something Calenhad, something something Alamarri, mead, dogs. I dunno, geography wasn't my best school subject... or politics... or history... Most women are only interested in my body.” Shit, was that too forward? That was way too forward.

At any other time Merrill might have blushed intensely, but she was on a tear and she wasn't coming off until she was done. “But that's _your_ choice to sleep through history. Any time you want to know that stuff, just get onto History.net and poof! All at your fingertips. Imagine you didn't know any of that. Imagine you didn't have a permanent city to live in, or any actors or singers or scientists who looked like you, or places named after your famous heroes. The Eluvian could help restore Dalish history, even if only a little bit. Who's your favourite elvhen singer?”

That put Carver on the spot. What did that have to do with - “Er, Athenril.”

“ _Second_ favourite.”

“... Stevie Nicks?”

Merrill threw a cushion at him. “You see my point? Humans are barely aware we exist until it suits them.” She smiled. “I do like Stevie Nicks though.”

He was able to get her to talk music after that, and they spent a pleasant hour or two cataloguing all the bands they had in common until Carver sheepishly admitted he had to be at training. 

"No! Of course you must. Um. Thank you for visiting. Even though you're, er, a police officer. Not that I've done anything wrong or anything. Stop talking Merrill. I'll see you out, shall I?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All descriptions of Merrill's home are lifted directly from 20 years of share housing in Fitzroy, Northcote and Brunswick. For non-Melbournians the word "Seattle" should cover it, except that our coffee is good.


	3. Chapter 3

Inevitably, Carver got an earful about Merrill from his police contacts.

Fenris worked on the fringes of the force – an informant and unofficial standover man for the trafficking division, a heavy hitter whom it was good to be on the right side of. Carver respected him immensely – his pursuit of slavers was relentless and deadly – but it would perhaps be exaggerating to call his company pleasant. Strangely, given his deep-seated and genuine disapproval of drugs (which never stopped him pulling out his “happy pills” in the middle of the Hanged Man to skull them down with a glass of pinot), he was a friend of Garrett's, and avoided shopping him to the authorities.

“Garrett tells me you're seeing the Professor,” he said, lining up the triangle precisely. Carver rubbed a bit of chalk on the end of his cue.

“The Professor? I mean, she's a scientist, but I don't think she's a professor of anything... You wanna break?”    

“Of course.” Removing the triangle, Fenris replaced it on the lampshade and hefted his cue. He lined up his shot precisely, blackwork tattoos straining over muscles like nautical ropes, and smashed the balls into every corner of the table, downing two of them which turned out to be both big and small. He scowled. “You're big.”

“Of course I am”, Carver replied – over the years this had become a conversational tic rather than a joke – and hit the white just a bit too hard to successfully pot the large 9, which jostled about in the pocket and bounced right out again. Fenris continued as he lined up his next shot. “She's called the Professor because of her extreme proficiency at making new and undesirable substances. She has some nonsense line about restoring elvhen consciousness.” He snorted. “Because we don't take enough drugs already.”

“Has she actually _done_ anything, though? I haven’t seen her name in our records,” said Carver, who had checked exhaustively. The large 9 eluded him again, and he moved out of the way for Fenris to take his shot.

“You haven’t seen her name because her material isn’t illegal. As always, the law cannot keep up.”

“How is it not illegal? If you make meth, that’s meth, surely.”

Fenris closed his eyes to avoid Carver seeing him rolling them, then potted the small 7 and 3 in each corner of the end closest to the bar. “I assume your training does not actually cover basic chemistry. If a product is sufficiently divergent from the base drug to justify a patent, then it is not covered by current legislation.” With no good options on the table, he made a conservative shot to avoid giving Carver a penalty.

“But then… maybe it isn’t a problem? Like, if it’s far from the base drug, it avoids the nasties or something.” Carver bent over to evaluate his options. They were pretty fucked – large 7 hidden between the pocket and two of Fenris’ balls ( _snort_ ), 2 balanced on the edge of a pocket where Carver knew he would just knock it out, and the rest smattered around the table in completely indifferent positions.

As he was lining up a slightly-too-clever shot at the large 3, plopped safely in the middle of the table, a hand crept up underneath his shirt, tickling his ribs. He yelped and scooped the white ball clean off the table, where Fenris quickly stomped on it and accepted his two. “Ah, Carver, your innocent assumption that drugs are illegal for _logical_ reasons continues to be adorable,” a sultry female voice said.

“You fucking bitch, Isabela.”  He couldn’t stay mad at her, though – aside from any fap value she’d given him over the years, she was a friend of Merrill. Which meant she’d be able to tell him any useful secrets! That was clearly worth giving an extra two shots to Fenris.

Isabela laughed, her husky voice closer to a frogmouth than Merrill’s sparrow, and pulled his shirt back over his bum. “You know Fenris is going to wipe the floor with you. All I did was speed it up so we can get to the serious drinking.” She lifted a chocolate-brown pint to her lips, dripping a little on her ample cleavage.

Carver had been watching her do this for years, and was _almost_ certain she wasn’t doing it deliberately. Except when she was.

“You’re friends with Merrill, yeah?” he blurted, not worried about seeming desperate. Anything he said to Isabela came out clumsy and childlike, so fuck it. Isabela eyed him coolly. “I assume I don’t need to issue the usual warning?”

“What?! _Way_ too early for that. Stop that,” pulling her clenched fist away from his crotch. “I just want… you know, an edge.”

“Oh, you’ve already got an edge, puppy. Ha! Puppy and Kitten. This is going to be so cute I might puke.” Fenris didn’t even try to hide his eyeroll. Carver seemed preoccupied, so he took the big guy’s shot for him.

“But, you know, what does she _like_? I mean, we like a lot of the same bands and stuff, but…” Carver had been burnt by the assumption that girls who liked your favourite bands were destined to be your girlfriend. Especially emo bands.

“She likes pretty much _everything_ , Carver. That includes your brother, so maybe you might want to start talking to him again.”

“That is completely unfair. He’s not exactly queuing up to visit me, for very good reasons.”

“You’re a riot cop. Do you even have the authority to do anything about him?”

“Isabela, technically _you_ could arrest _him_. Then he could arrest you for, for, whatever you do.”

Isabela’s face brightened up at this. “Ah! Thanks for reminding me.” She reached into her giant coat pocket and pulled out a plain disc marked _Archer S.5_ in texta. “As requested.” She shoved it into his hands. Fenris continued taking his own and Carver’s shots.

“Ooh! …thanks,” said Carver, feeling as if he’d been thoroughly played, but not sure how.

“Merrill likes animals, rain, sun, bicycles, cars, flowers, weeds, dirt, raising elvhen consciousness and big beefy men in low-cut jeans.” Carver managed to hide his blush in the dimly lit bar. “Basically, as long as you don’t actually re-enslave the elves, you’re in like Flynn, except Merrill just _looks_ underage.”

“Merrill doesn’t look underage! She –“

Isabela put her head back and cackled wickedly. She sounded rather like the woman who’d given the Hawkes a lift to Gwaren in a huge red Mack truck with no aircon and extremely loud exhaust brakes. “Hold that thought, puppy.” She looked over to Fenris. “How’s your game going?”

“I think I may be about to beat myself. It will be a change, at least.” Fenris’ sense of humour had developed _very_ slowly over the years.

Isabela leaned over the table, supposedly inspecting what was left of the game, but definitely exposing vast landscapes of cleavage for Fenris’ benefit. The elf took a long look at her breasts, committing them to memory, then, with brutal efficiency, shot all the smalls into each pocket, followed by the black.

Having got at least part of what he wanted, Carver didn’t have the heart to resent him.

 


End file.
